It is generally known that when a condensive load such as a shunt capacitor is connected by a circuit breaker, a large inrush current flows depending on a closing phase.
In Japan, a series reactor whose capacity is 6% of capacitance of the capacitor is inserted to suppress the magnitude of the inrush current. However, the capacitance of the shunt capacitor increases with the increasing capacity of a system, and the inrush current tends to increase.
Outside Japan, a series reactor is not used in many cases. Therefore, an inrush current is expected to be higher than in Japan. In Japan, a neutral point of a capacitor is not grounded. However, outside Japan, the neutral point is directly grounded in most cases. Accordingly, there is expected to be a difference of phenomena by connecting/disconnecting of a capacitor bank (shunt capacitor group) between Japan and areas outside Japan.
The shunt capacitor is connected/disconnected more than once a day in response to load variations. The electrical life of the circuit breaker used to connect/disconnect the shunt capacitor is important. The electrical life of the circuit breaker is greatly affected by the wearing away of an arcing contact and a nozzle of the circuit breaker. The condition that determines the electrical life of the circuit breaker which connects/disconnects the shunt capacitor is dominated by erosion resulting from pre-arcing discharge at the time of the closing of the circuit breaker.
In order to suppress a magnetizing inrush current that flows when a transformer is energized, it is known to use a circuit breaker having a structure in which a resistor-equipped circuit breaker including a closing resistance and a contact that are connected in series is connected in parallel to a circuit breaker main contact. This circuit breaker closes the resistor-equipped circuit breaker prior to the circuit breaker main contact and thereby suppresses the magnetizing inrush current.
However, the size increase of the circuit breaker configured to have the resistor-equipped circuit breaker is inevitable. The shunt capacitor is often disposed in a power system of a voltage class of, for example, 66 or 77 kV. In these voltage classes, most circuit breakers are a three-phase collective operation type. The three-phase collective operation type circuit breaker closes all three phases at the same time. When three phases of shunt capacitors are connected at the same time, the suppression of an inrush current is difficult.